The Australian Way - Introduction

I had not intended to post today. However, in my trawling I came across material that created an itch to say something.

On September 2006 in Blogosphere Woes I reported on a journey across the blogosphere, that, with one exception, left me wishing that I had never started, blogged out. I concluded:

The exception? Australia really is culturally different from most other countries, quite remarkably different. We don't see it unless forced to by the type of journey I have just taken. I will try to capture this in a post once I have recovered.

In the way of things, this then started me on a series of posts exploring different aspects of the Australian experience.

This morning a visit to Tim Blair's blog led me to an article by Chan Akya in Asia Times Online commenting on Australia. Some of the comments on Tim's blog as well as as in other discussion chains positively sizzled with outrage.

I thought that the article was a bit silly, although perhaps no sillier than some of the op ed pieces we see in Australia's own newspapers. However, it caused me to look back at the pieces that I have written trying to articulate what I now think of as the Australian Way, the things that in combination make us truly different as a country.

One difficulty with the blog format is that it makes it very difficult for readers to follow discussion threads spread over multiple posts. Looking at the range of material I have written, probably over 30,000 words now, the slowly developing messages get lost. I can see the pattern and supporting linkages, but no reader will.

So in the midst of the other things I am interested in, it may be time to start drawing some of this together, to represent it so that it can be further criticised and refined.